ABSTRACT
The choice of which radical reformers to interrogate on their views of social revolution was pragmatic: Balthasar Hubmaier, Christoph Schappeler and Hans Hergot were all involved in the Peasants' War of 1524–26, in different theatres of rebellion, and with differing theological assumptions and practical agendas. Hubmaier's involvement in the Peasants' War stemmed from his position as the Reforming preacher of the small Austrian town of Waldshut on the Rhine above Basel. Schappeler begins his tract, it is true, by exhorting the peasants to remain at peace, to render under Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to remember that authority is ordained by God. Hergot's tirade against the scribes, which he then develops at length and with vehemence, is the least coherent passage of his tract. In practice, Hergot's Christian commonwealth is a republican theocracy whose configuration – though not its derivation – echoes both Schappeler and Hubmaier, albeit that it is more radical than either of these men's vision.
